It is also looking into claims that Roland van Hauwermeiren – the charity worker at the centre of the sexual misconduct scandal in Haiti – was employed by Oxfam two years after he left another aid agency because of concerns about his behaviour.

‘Horrified’

Ms Mercado, who oversees 14 countries, said she was aware of similar cases involving Oxfam workers in Asia between 2009 and 2013.

She said they went largely unreported publicly and had been dealt with internally “according to specified policies”, although the situation should not be defined as a “cover up”.

But in an interview with the BBC, she said: “Haiti has taught us we need to do a lot more.”

She said more effort should be made to alert the authorities and other potential employers about allegations.

“That’s a practice that we need to start,” Ms Mercado added.

“You know the funny thing about cases like this is that we always see them as reputational risks.

“But the way to manage reputational risk is not to keep silent.. we need to be thinking about the reputation of the sector as a whole.”

Image copyrightReutersImage caption The focus on Oxfam was sparked by allegations about its staff in Haiti

However, Oxfam said there had been an increase in one-off donations on Tuesday as well as 44 new regular gifts [direct debits] – the highest since March 2017.

Funding ultimatum

International Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt has said she would “not hesitate” to cut government funding to charities that failed to put robust safeguarding measures in place.

At an event in Stockholm to find ways to end violence against children, she said: “No organisation is too big, or our work with them too complex, for me to hesitate to remove funding from them if we cannot trust them to put the beneficiaries of aid first.”

Ms Mordaunt, who also spoke to the National Crime Agency (NCA) about the issue, said Oxfam’s failure to deal with the actions of some of its staff should be a “wake-up call” to the sector.

The NCA said it had range of powers to investigate allegations abroad and would be considering how it can assist with “international safeguarding considerations”.

Since the allegations came to light, Oxfam’s deputy chief executive, Penny Lawrence, has resigned over the charity’s handling of the misconduct.